Orlando Bass Fishing Report
Top water bite has been doing ok, with Lake Louise seeing the best top water action for us. Secret Weapon Lures Buzzrbait has been a good do to bait, as well as High Roller Chug Roller. Hits have been aggressive. With the consistent rains, Lake Louise has been dirtied up, waters going from clean to coffee brown.
Soft plastic bite has been doing good, with a wacky rigged Gitem K.O once again catching not only good numbers, but good size as well. Lakes Sheen, Pocket and Chase have yielded the numbers and size, up to 5 pounds for us as of late. Working grass beds and scattered docks has been the key to catching bass, as well as working your baits very slow.
Did make a run into Fish Lake, a lake which I have not been in since early January, waters back then were so low in the canal, the bottom of my boat was banging the canal bottom. Going thru the canal, which is a ¼ mile long, I had to use the trolling motor, holding it up just below the surface of the water to get back there, and there was a tree blocking the canal toward the end, which saw me and my partner standing in the canal, him pulling the boat, and me pushing it around the tree to get to the lake. We finally made it back there and started to work the lily pads, swimming lizards across the lily pads getting several blow ups, with him missing a hook up on the edge of the pads, with what would have been an easy 6 pounder.
Rains have held the water levels pretty steady, finally getting water back into the lakes, with water temperatures holding around 84-86 degrees by days end. Limited schooling action in Lakes Pocket, and Tibet the last few days.
My old tournament partner and I hit Butler Chain for a few hours, one to get him out on the water, and two so I could experiment with some new lures. We had started the day out on Lake Louise working a Buzzrbait from Secret Weapon Lures. This lure worked great thru the water and made a ton of commotion and after 5 casts I had the first blow up and what I thought was a solid hook up. Working the bass to the boat, she suddenly let go of the bait, what would have been a nice 5 pound catch, turned into a 5 pound heart break, she apparently had grabbed the small willow leaf blade that was attached to the Buzzr. A few casts later and another crushing blow up, a solid 3 pounder was in the boat.
From there we made a move into Lake Pocket, working the spinner baits from Secret Weapon Lures, and Gitem K.O’s wacky rigged. Switching up blade combinations on the spinner bait from a double willow to a double Colorado blade landed two more very solid bass, along with several others being boated off the wacky rig set up. These spinner baits made life so much easier, not having to always retie a new one on, just having to change the blades out, which was done in a matter of seconds. Bass seemed to relate once again to grass beds with deep water drop offs close by, and after getting a hook up, the were running to the drop offs. Lily pads were holding some bass of good size, as we had one in the 6 to 7 pound class break off just on the edge of the pads. Swimming a lizard slowly across the pads seemed to get the most hits.
Waters were running in the mid 80’s when we pulled off and did notice the levels have come up some, not much, but a good sign. Bass were holding in 5 to 8 foot of water and hit very aggressive, which made for a great day on the water, with us boating 12 bass, and missing/breaking off about 6 others.
The past 2 weeks have seen some good bass fishing action out on Butler Chain. Starting with the Patterson clan, with shiners and artificial baits we worked Lake Butler and Lake Chase, with Steve tossing a spinner bait to get the “wildest” hook set award of the year. Steve was tossing a spinner bait in and around grasses and docks, when he gave her a toss to a dock, spinner bait going over the dock walkway, back into the water around a PVC pipe sticking up and under a boat. Thinking this was going to be a mess, he was right, as he tried to shake the lure loose, the line got pinned between a post and the walkway, when it looked like the rod got tugged on.
This past week has been yet another very busy week, with some very good and solid bass being caught on everything from live bait to artificial lures. With the bass spawn all but over, bass have moved for the most part away from shallow waters and have staged more towards deeper waters, close to drop offs. There has on some days been some very good schooling activity going on, some days the schooling bass will just hammer the live bait, while other days they seem to prefer t-rigged worms with a small screw in bullet weight.
Friday saw Sam and his son out on Butler Chain, this youngster was very impressive with his casting skills, working bait casters like a true pro, starting the day out catching the first bass in the first 10 minutes working a spinner bait thru the grass beds on Lake Butler before switching up to the worms and catching several more. Sam kinda hung out on the back of the boat and had a blast watching his son fish, and even had his son coaching him on where to toss his lures, with his dad getting a good bass on a rattlin vibe out of the deep waters on Butler. Weather was better today, with what should be our last cold front. Very minimal schooling activity was seen on the lakes that we fished today, but it’s only a matter of time before the waters start to really heat up with what will be a great top water bite.
This past week on Butler Chain had its ups and downs. Monday and Tuesday saw some good top water action on Lake Butler. During the early morning we saw a good amount of schooling action. Tuesday turned out to be the best day with bass being caught on High Roller ChugRollers in Fire Tiger. Big bass for the day came in at a solid 3.8 pounds, and just slammed the ChugRoller.
Thursday I had the McClain duo, husband and wife out on Butler. We started out with Margarita working live bait, and Carl with top water baits. There was very limited schooling action once again, but Carl was very determined to nail a nice bass on top water. He started out with an Original High Roller, but then switched to a ChugRoller. A very solid bass, in the 4 pound class came up to slam the bait. Carl said he felt her hit the lure so he set the hook, but she was gone. That, unfortunately was the end of the top water action for the day. Margarita continued to work the live bait, missing her first bass as it chased the shiner to the surface. She got too excited and the hook up was missed. After a few coaching words, Margarita didn’t miss another bass. We actually had to keep an eye on her, as she never said a word, we only knew she had one on when we heard the drag. Her big fish of the day came in at 5.1 pounds.
